The second century CE marble head of Julia Domna, wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, the founder of the Severan dynasty, which was stolen from the Museo del Canopo at Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli in 2012, is now coming home.

The bust was identified in Amsterdam in May 2015 as having been part of the permanent collections at Hadrian's villa, an UNESCO World Heritage Site, just as it was about to be put up for consignment at Christies auction house in the Netherlands. Suspicious of the very recognizable bust, and the very unrecognizable couple selling it, who seemingly had not prior history as collectors of pricey ancient art, the auction house contacted Dutch authorities and the Italian Carabinieri del Comando Tutela Patrimonio Culturale - sezione Archeologia to report their concerns. This was truly a proactive step forward in due diligence as the object was not represented in the stolen art databases.

Working in collaboration with the Dutch police and the Italian authorities, the auction house informed the would-be consignors that they had declined to list the sculpture and Christies returned the marble head to their would-be sellers. This allowed the legal authorities the opportunity to formally charge two Dutch citizens on suspicion of theft and receiving stolen property.

As the investigation continued, the object was ultimately relinquished without the need for letters rogatory, which are the customary means of obtaining judicial assistance from overseas authorities in the absence of a treaty or other agreement.

Speaking at the Dutch press conference held in the offices of the Amsterdam public prosecutor Major Massimo Maresca, who led the Italian carabinieri a team said, "Each stolen piece of art that comes back to our museums is like a wound that has healed." Maresca also personally thanked the Amsterdam police for their collaboration.

The sculpture has now been relinquished to the Italian authorities, where it will be held in judicial custody at the disposal of the Public Prosecutor of Rome until such time as any criminal and civil court proceedings have been completed. At the conclusion of the legal case, the Julia Domna bust, with her fabulous hairdo, will then be returned to Villa Adriana, where it will be displayed in the antiquarium.

While various websites have begun estimating the commercial value of the bust at €500,000 it should be remembered that public objects, especially one depicting the Empress of the Roman Empire from 170 to 217 CE, are not for sale in Italy and should not be expressed in terms of financial value. Their loss, when stolen is a historic and cultural loss that is heavier than any monetary amount.

Lastly, we would be remiss for saying thanks also to the employees of Christie's Amsterdam office for their due diligence and prompt notification to authorities that they had been offered an object with collecting irregularities. Bravi tutti.

The Carabinieri TPC (Carabinieri del Nucleo Tutela Patrimonio Culturale) in Ancona have recovered three stolen paintings dating from the seventeenth century. The investigation, started in early 2014 and coordinated by the Public Prosecutors at the Court of Rome and in Perugia involved two paintings stolen in a private home in the province of Siena in 2007 and a third which had been taken from a house in Rome in 1991.

This is not the first time Ancona's Carabinieri TPC squad has been successful in recovering stolen art. In September 2015 the unit recovered an oil painting from an unknown artist dating from the XVI / XVII century, depicting a 'Madonna with Child'. This artwork had been stolen sometime in the evening between the 5th and 6th of June 1990 from the Chiesa dei Santi Pietro e Paolo where it had been displayed above the alter. .The painting had turned up in an an antique store in San Benedetto del Tronto.

Details on the recent paintings recovered and the conditions of the artworks are expected during a forthcoming Carabinieri TPC press conference.

He [Espinoza] was asking $700,000 for works he said were worth $5 million, though the paintings have since been valued for as much as $23 million, said Ricardo Santiago, a spokesman for the Los Angeles district attorney.

Melley/AP wrote that Espinoza's restitution hearing is scheduled for March 25.

Veronica Rocha for The Los Angeles Times reported that Espinoza's sentence was "four years and four months".

In May 2012, Mash Leo for The Jewish Daily reported that Susan and Anton Roland donated 15 works of art (including a Francis Bacon triptych worth $75 million) to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art:

This collection was accumulated over a lifetime by Susan Roland and her husband, the late Anton Roland. A teary-eyed George Roland paid tribute to his parents’ passion for art collecting: “Father was born in Carpathia [Czechoslovakia]. Mother was born in Hungary. They married in Budapest. In 1946 they moved to Paris and dreamt of owning paintings…. In 1949 they bought a Chagall in Israel [and] kept on buying paintings all over Europe. When [Dad] bought the Francis Bacon painting, his wife remarked that it was immoral to pay so much money [for it]. He pacified her by saying that it would eventually go to the Tel Aviv Museum…. It was their greatest wish to have a collection and to donate it after our passing, to share it with the Israeli people.’”

Here's a link to the article and a 5-minute video on the website "Newsworks" which describes the show of 120 Greco-Roman-Etruscan antiquities recovered by Italy's Guardia di Finanza; the exhibit will run October 3 to December 21 at the Grand Opera House and in Newark at the University of Delaware's Old College Gallery. This is a link to the exhibit's website: treasuresandtales.com.